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Avaya and HP forge cloud alliance

Vendor giants announce global resale and service-delivery tie-up

Avaya and HP have inked a global multi-year deal to team up on delivering cloud communications services.

The duo are uniting to provide end users with as-a-service offerings in unified communications and contact centre, as well as "infrastructure modernisation services". HP will resell Avaya services, and the hardware giant will also take over delivery of "a significant" portion of Avaya Private Cloud Services (APCS). A number of APCS staff and contractors will be transferred to HP's Enterprise Services (ES) unit.

The Avaya services will also be sold through HP ES' partner base, while Avaya will retain responsibility for contracts, service-level agreements, and other customer service duties.

Mike Nefkens, general manager of HP ES, said: "This agreement reinforces HP's commitment to the mobility and workplace market and helps to grow HP's presence in the end-user space. HP is also making an investment in Avaya's capabilities to improve our contact centre infrastructure and significantly enhance business process services and customer engagement management."

The partnership with Avaya supports HP's larger vision for the "new style of IT". Avaya claims the union "marks another major step in Avaya's transformation to a software and services company".

"The agreement with HP is the right path at the right time to quickly address what is already one of the fastest-growing areas of our business. Through our long-term relationship, we already share many customers. We expect that base to grow significantly with this new model, supporting the world's collaboration business environment."